Some lore/story and game questions about TAK/Iron Plague.

I got some questions about the story/lore and units if anyone wants to please enlighten me

1. Where is Creon on the map of Darien? I have no clue where it actually is located.

2. On the map of darien i can see that aramon, taros and zhon "continents" actually continue even further "off the world map".Has it ever been described what is actually outside of the Darien shown on the world map?

3. I recall reading from the manual that the ancient super-wizard race got "mysteriously wiped out" by some strange plague or something similar.Then i recall reading (from the same manual i think) that Lokken's magic was working fine on improving his kingdom, until one day it completely backfired and started ravaging the entire Taros kingdom.

Lokken blamed Elsin/Kirrena for his magic's failure, but i am not convinced they could have sabotaged him.Could the plague that wiped out the ancient super-wizard race have been the same plague that ravaged Taros and got Lokken furious with his siblings?

If so, what the hell is that plague and why does it happen? Perhaps caused by intense magic use?But then how come Garacious never encountered that plague, he used more magic than Lokken?

4. Some melee units do "cleave/AoE" damage, even so much as to hurt other allied melee units around them?!Silliest thing i have ever seen is when my pack of 5 Berserkers attacked a Lodestone - and they all killed each other before the Loadstone died!Is this really intended?If so, how do i actually use masses of units such as Berserkers when they just kill each other when attacking enemies?I hope it is not expected of the player to individually micro each and every Berserker when they are in a pack of 10+?!5. Is there any way to order newly created Zhon units to automatically patrol towards an enemy?

6. I noticed that a lot of air units, like the Dirigible and the Gryphon (zhon) attack a lot more consistently if i constantly spam the attack command on a GROUND target?It seems the attack spam interrupts their "flying around" maneuvers and forces them to just fly above a ground target and bombard it?Or am i making a mistake?

7. Is it just me or does Creon seem a tad overpowered (too strong)?Their ground/air units are really strong and their navy is insanely good, and their towers are great?!Are there any major drawbacks to Creon?

8. Certain units like the Repair Skiff and the Acolyte of Anu (aramon) passively heal other units for IMMENSE mana costs?!Is there any way to disable or prevent this healing (aside from separating units), so i do not quickly run out of mana?

I can help answering some game questions, I wasn't very much addicted to the story of TA:K but I was addicted to the game itself. =P

Try contacting $_ARTHAN, he knows a lot of the story, but he hasn't been much active last months...

Here we go:

4- It's the same as waving your own base hoping it doesn't do damage to your own units. =PBut, you're right in parts, because projectiles of your own units won't damage your own other units, it'll just pass through.

5- No.

6- You're right, but keep in mind that dirigible (the arrow) and gryphon were made to kill other flying units. But gryphon is much less accurate, maybe because it's a human firing a spear from something flying (so hard to land). But yeah, one way to get it accurate is spam click (I guess it's not intentional).

7- Maybe because creon has a small variety of units, but these units do like everything, while other races has huge variety of units, but they are specific for a situation (that makes creon easier to play) lol.

I made a comment about it there: "♦ Removed Acolyte and Priest of Lihr Healing Aura.- For being annoying healing gates and walls, and nobody uses that if not to waste all your mana to heal your monarch 0,1% per second. xP"#DK | DeeKayForum Admin.

IMHO on all of this. I am no expert. I just play it...alot.I assumed from the lore that Creon was the plague that wiped the wizards out, given that they were added in the Iron Plague. Was I incorrect?

Berserkers are more of a light flanking unit. Set that factory to patrol, they will wedge into odd defensive spots due to their size, but can mangle a blob of enemies pretty easily. Thus, 1 berserker comes onto the side of say, 12 executioners, it's likely to severly wound 5 of them, then the next one appears. Most flankers in this game work like that. Many units damage your own units as well, it's why enemiesonly = 0 is there.

Creon is NOT overpowered. They rely heavily on scouting(while their scouts have the largest footprint and weakest HP of all), have no true melee power. Creons units are highly generalized, but actually have a dismal cost/benefit ratio as their cost limits numbers. They are also units that tend to fire very slowly, even prism towers. This means that say, 4-5 cabals pumping out zombies can overwhelm Creon forces easier than say, Aramon forces would be overwhelmed. Now imagine a massive rush of like, 4 factories jamming out knights on patrol. Creon goes down VERY fast.

GryphonsI once got my butt handed to me by the games original designer at a game of starcraft. (his kickstarter looks awesome btw)It's actually how I discovered the TA series, dude was on battlenet murdering people with zerg. We actually discussed some of the units, amongst them the flyers. He said the accuracy and odd flight patterns were there to balance the units out, as well as adding an air of authenticity. Turns out if you give the gryphons weapons and HP to say, a wisp, they do redonculous damage. Those few matches and talks with him really opened my mind about RTS gaming in general. For instance, he said they spend gross amounts of time trying to balance the power/cost ratio of weak and touch enemies, as the tougher ones would naturally see more gains in large groups. They did well on that. 30 hunters vs 6 stone giants and so on.

1) Rammstein had the map attached, but I remember vaguely somewhere how the land of Creon was described as much smaller in area, and rather far removed from the other lands. So the location is relatively right, but to what degree we cannot know.

2) Unfortunately, there's little description of anything else than the map provided. It doesn't really explain much other than the known world ruled by Garacaius was split between his children. I look at it like the Roman Empire of our world, and the lands beyond their borders. They knew about other lands, and had very rudimentary maps, but meh...

3) The Kandrans and the Great Cataclysm. The Kandrans overused mana. Sort of... Okay, let me explain. Creon uses mana responsibly, and view it as a resource. Like our world's oil. The Kandrans used mana like a super industrialized society of our world. Using mana for everything from cooking, to flight, to random production. With mana, one has to assume a basic law of (al)chemistry. For every action, there is and equal and opposite reaction. Equivalent exchange.

Except there isn't any "waste" in Darien. For some odd reason. So one has to assume that mana regulates its own waste byproduct. In theory, then, one must assume that a blowback will occur when the essence of mana is overutilized. So when the Kandrans abused it, something in the... Aether, if you will, went haywire and backfired. All mana the world over went off in a chain reaction of destruction. And since it was interwoven into every aspect of civilized life, all civilization collapsed. Especially the magically minded and mana adept folks. All that was left were ignorant and superstitious folk who didn't understand, but knew mana was dangerous.

One reason is that they were altering the fabric of the earth. Literally taking the world and molding it to their will. Same as Lokken. Other folks use it as a supplement, or a tool. He was straight up mutating the landscape. That's why it backfired for him, but only on his local scale. The Kandrans were wrecking stuff all over the world. Hence the huge collapse. Taros under Lokken saw the same thing.

It isn't necessarily the amount of mana, but in the ways it was used. Garacaius used a huge amount, sure, but he wasn't consumed by it and it didn't rule his life. Lokken, however, is consumed by it, like the Kandrans of old. I think that's the key.

Edit: I sort of postulated on the nature of mana and its corrupting power, as well as the... shall we say degraded status of Taros back when I was rambling on about the history of a Tyrak.

In the video for one of the later Iron Plague missions (or in the campaign ending video? don't remember) you actually see a map that shows Creon in relation to Darien - it's pretty much as rammstein shows, but with more of a separation (the Kuvera Straits or whatever are quite long apparently). Makes sense that Creon is on the same continent as Aramon - in the campaign Aramon invades Creon via a cave system

(PS new member, hi! Been playing TAK on-and-off for years but never been on any online forums!)

1. You can see where Creon is located on the map of Darien by watching the Iron Plague victory movie.First a map of Creon is displayed, then you can see the land that is connecting the known maps of Creon and Darien, and finally you can see the map of Darien.Land that is connecting them can be seen in this image.Combining all these 3 maps you get this image.

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Subject: Re: Some lore/story and game questions about TAK/Iron Plague.